Maturity is the stage in a company’s life cycle during which it reaches its prime form. Stability in all aspects of a business organization is another way to describe the discussed stage. All operations, processes, and initiatives happen as they should, and emergencies rarely happen (Ford, 2022). During this phase, the organization also has a balanced staff of experienced key employees, workers who joined 4 or 5 years ago, and newcomers. A mature firm is an active market actor that conducts periodic expansion to strengthen its position (Ford, 2022). Moreover, a commercial entity achieves its highest level of corporate investment efficiency during this period of the business life cycle (Ahmed et al., 2021). Xbox and Amazon are representatives of firms in the maturity phase.
Eventually, all business entities enter a phase of commercial decline. A fading company is a market actor whose revenue has fallen for over nine months (Ford, 2022). Its top management and core workers struggle to satisfy their priority customer base and attract new consumers because their traditional methodologies have become less efficient or no longer work. Corporate investment efficiency “starts to deteriorate during the decline stage of the firm life cycle” (Ahmed et al., 2021, p. 10). Its ability to manage corporate social responsibility and financial constraints becomes inefficient (Zhao & Xiao, 2019). It is the period when the owners decide to either leave the firm, close it or renovate and improve it conceptually. E. Remington and Sons and The Buffalo News are relatively recent examples of business organizations that have experienced a decline.
References
Ahmed, B., Akbar, M., Sabahat, T., Ali, S., Hussain, A., Akbar, A., & Hongming, X. (2020). Does firm life cycle impact corporate investment efficiency? Sustainability, 13(1), 1-13. Web.
Ford, R. (2022). The 4 stages of business growth: How companies evolve. LinkedIn. Web.
Zhao, T., & Xiao, X. (2019). The impact of corporate social responsibility on financial constraints: Does the life cycle stage of a firm matter? International Review of Economics & Finance, 63, 76-93. Web.